Book Cataloguing: Goodreads.com?

Last night, around 2:30 am (!), I found this site: goodreads.com.

I like the look of it, but I also was a bit puzzled. Is there a big difference to LibraryThing? Does anyone have experience with this site or maybe even use it?

I’m tempted to sign up but I already use LibraryThing and without a real difference between the two, Goodreads would be just another time suck thing to play with.

On Goodreads, you start with three default shelves: read, currently-reading, and to-read. The last two are the reason I’m interested in trying it (and I think that’s the difference). In addition, you can also create your own bookshelves.

But I think that there are no tags – one of the things I like best about LibraryThing – and that you would need to create different shelves to catalogue books of different genres or sub-genres. I also don’t think that cross-referencing would be possible with that. A book would either need to be on the “romance” shelve or on the “funny read” shelve, for example. Or maybe the bookshelves I create are a subset of the three default shelves which would probably mean that cross-referencing would be possible.

There’s only one way to find out, I guess.

EDITED TO ADD: Kristie (J) wrote a great post about three online book cataloguing systems some months ago. Goodreads wasn’t her favorite. Thanks for the link, Kristie!

“All My Books” – Library Software

Last week LibraryThing, this week All My Books.

I already mentioned LibraryThing and how great I think it is. I seriously thought about paying for an upgrade to get all my romance novels organized and online. Actually, I was sure I would do it.

Today (that is one hour ago), I followed a link from Dear Author to Give Away Of The Day where 24 minutes were left to download All My Books, a program which at first look seems similar to LibraryThing minus the online presentation and contact possibilities with other users. I’ll go and play with it for the next couple of days and then think again about the upgrade for LibraryThing.

Anything Wrong With That?

I spent the whole afternoon playing with LibraryThing. Entering books (just romance novels) until I reached the limit of the free account, playing with tags, looking at my author and tag clouds, looking at the libraries of members with similar books, and so on. I’m totally in love, happy, and already think about upgrading.

Then today, “my” three Laura Kinsale books arrived: Midsummer Moon, Seize the Fire, The Prince of Midnight. In the evening, I spent some of the time on the floor in the living room, fondling the books because 1. they are finally here; 2. nice covers; 3. they actually have all around 500 pages! I couldn’t believe it, I’m so used to 300 pages and then some.

So there I sat, looking at the books, touching the books, being happy about the books.

Of course, this must seem pretty strange to other (non-reading) people, but there it is. It was a good day for the reader in me, first LibraryThing, then long romances (and Laura Kinsale at that), and I’m really nearly giddy.

Is anything wrong with that picture?